What Sex are my Birchen Marans and Barnevelders?

[TNBowen]

well sadly looking at them today I'm fairly certain 2 of the barnies are roo's, they are getting bigger combs and are pink, and also their legs are noticeably thicker, verdict is still out on the 3rd one, so looks like I have at least 5 roo's out of 7 chicks

 

[RachaelS]

I digress, I did find the Barnevelder thread by TLS_Ranch about sexing his line of chicks, but all of his still don't seem to have as much comb on them as mine do for the ages. As always I guess the best way to find out is time lol, I'm just going to be disappointed to have like 6 cockerels out of 7 chicks

TLS_Ranch is Trisha

She has some great barnies, I have 8 from her right now. I have had several hatches of Barnies and I would say you have 1 Cockerel, 1 pullet and one I am not sure about. With the Marans I believe 1 is a pullet but the rest are for sure Cockerels, so 2 out of 7.... One year I spent a bit of money on eggs, out of 8 only 2 were pullets and then right before laying date my dog killed the best of the two. They are a great breed.

 

[TNBowen]

yes I'm having a bit of a predator crisis myself these past couple of months. I originally started my flock with 2 buff orpingtons, 2 golden-laced wyandottes, and a black cochin roo (and several guineas but they ran away like the 2nd day I let them range and I can't say I'm really all that sad since they were waaaaaaaay too noisy).

Everything had been fine for almost an entire year, they free ranged during day all over my yard and put themselves up at night and I'd shut the door. Then a few months ago I bought 3 birchen marans pullets but they were fairly young and too small to mix in with my main flock without fear of being pecked to death, so I threw together a separate coop but this time tractor style and not really thinking about it I didn't cage or net the top of the 4-5 ft tall run. Once again everything was fine for the first several weeks and right as I was about to move them to the main coop to try integrating them I noticed one was gone, no feathers, no signs, nothing, it was just a chicken rapture. I put the remaining 2 in the main coop, but they hadn't yet learned to roost yet so they slept on the floor. Few nights later I think I had forgotten to put the chicken door down and poof another marrans gone, this time there was a feather trail out into the woods but still never found the body. Then another couple of days I did a head count and a wyandotte was missing as I was shutting them up, no signs this time, another chicken rapture. Couple days later a stray dog that was staying at the neighbors across the street killed my Cochin roo and started on one of my orpingtons, but she survived.

So now I'm without a rooster and my hens seemed lost for the next couple of days. Well this is when I got my chicks from the same guy I had gotten my marans from. My coworker came with me who also got all his brids from this guy since he needed a double blue laced barnevelder hen for his roo. Well for whatever reason the guy was going to give my coworker another roo with his hen and my friend said he'd give it to me, so I left with my 7 chicks and a half grown gorgeous Double Blue Laced Barnie....of course about a week later my predator strikes again right before I shut my chickens up for the night....guess which bird it got

So messing around with a trail camera I finally got it set up where I could catch my predator and it turns out to be a raccoon, so now I have several live animal traps set up and just last night I've caught 2 cats (one my own which is lucky to still be alive since it has a ringed tail...) and a possum. My girls have been on lock down until all this gets sorted out.

 

[TNBowen]

Well going to update the pics of my Barnevelders, at this point I'm guessing 1 cockerel and 2 pullets, and I believe one of my pullets may turn out to be a double laced blue.

Cockerel



Pullet? Blue Laced?



And Pullet?



Turning into a fun learning experience since I've never gotten my birds this young and non-sexed before!

(And sorry I know it may be hard to tell the coloration difference with the lightning but the one I think may be blue laced is noticeably a lighter shade than the others, the others look darker and more black while it looks more of a greyish/blue.)

 

[hdowden]

looks like 4 cockerels in the last pic

 

[RachaelS]

Yep #1 is a boy for sure, I think you might be right the other 2 are pullets. Keep us updated. I love the Blue Laced Barnies! Where did you get yours from?

 

[TNBowen]

Yep #1 is a boy for sure, I think you might be right the other 2 are pullets. Keep us updated. I love the Blue Laced Barnies! Where did you get yours from?

A guy named Doug on the outskirts of the Nashville area raises Marans and Barnevelders and a few other breeds, I know he was working on and hoping to offer Jubilee Orpingtons by next year. I'm not sure if he's on this site or not, he claims to be one of the few breeders of Blue Laced Barnies around, though I honestly have nothing to base that upon to say one way or the other lol, but they are gorgeous birds and he does charge a pretty penny for his adult blue laced. Or at least what I'd consider a pretty penny, may not be for the more chicken specialists =)

Anyways I bought these from him straight run at about 1-1.5 wks old, his older chicks he was keeping for himself I guess to pick from for the next breeding crop. Which I guess is about the only benefit I see so far of me having 3 up coming Marans roos if I ever decide to go that route since I'm basically just getting into the chicken world.

 

[RachaelS]

I have never heard of him, I don't think. Blue laced are very rare, I think they are still considered more of a project breed right now. If you want to get more I really recommend TLS_Ranch, she is a dedicated breeder and her birds have GREAT lacing.

Here is the Barnie thread
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ders-lets-work-together-and-improve-the-breed


Here are my Trisha babies @ 13 weeks. I was lucky and got 2 boys and 6 girls. The other roo is in a different pen

 

[Kenshan1]

I do believe Barnie roos don't have the brown flecks in the chest. They do have brown flecks on the top of the wings with laceying at the wing tips, pullets have more lacey pattern starting over the wings & they have the flecks of brown through the chest.

The Barnie chicks I raised, breeders on here told me to tell by the chest color. White chest was roo & grey chest was pullet, the breeder I got mine from hadn't heard that & it didn't work for his chicks. Crowns didn't work for my chicks either. I had 2 grey chests & 2 white chests. I had 3 develop big crowns early. 1 grey chest & early crown was a roo. The rest were pullets.

As for the Marans. I had 5 Marans chicks from a feed store. One developed fast, big grown & huge legs. I thought forsure I had a roo but it was just a big pullet, she layed alot of double yokes before we had to reduce our flock. That was 2yrs ago.

Shannon

 

[TNBowen]

I have never heard of him, I don't think. Blue laced are very rare, I think they are still considered more of a project breed right now. If you want to get more I really recommend TLS_Ranch, she is a dedicated breeder and her birds have GREAT lacing.

Here is the Barnie thread
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/...ders-lets-work-together-and-improve-the-breed


Here are my Trisha babies @ 13 weeks. I was lucky and got 2 boys and 6 girls. The other roo is in a different pen

Yup I'm slowly making my way through the Barnie thread....250 pages is alot of work to catch up on lol....better than the marans page, think that is like 2500 pages!